Human Sister

form a yellow-green archway over the long drive leading up a hill to our winery? We turned right about a hundred meters in front of the winery, and as we drove through the gate opening in front of us, I wondered what his thoughts were about the huge, verdant yard.
    On our left, Grandpa’s tiltrotor sat on its pad, its proprotors pointing forward as if prepared to mow down a section of the ivy-covered security wall. On our right, over the broad green blaze of lawn, hovered plum and apple trees, and Japanese maples modeling their crimson and purple-bronze summer dresses. And in the garden frolicked late summer flowers, magnificent that warm, sunny afternoon, their colorful sex organs oozing fragrances full of desire.
    Straight ahead, the drive appeared to end in a tropical-looking profusion of rhododendrons, palms, tree ferns and a dense wall of Hinoki cypress. This lush, green screen lay at the foot of a knoll covered with large rocks, ornamental grasses, and salvia, their purple blossoms erect in the still air.
    At the top of the knoll was an English laurel hedge, behind which stood part of the security wall encompassing the nearly two-and-a-half-acre yard. Zigzagging up the center of the knoll were limestone stairs, which led up to a deck complete with bench and table. There, in the shade of the English laurel, I often studied on mild afternoons. Beyond the hedge and wall at the top of the knoll lay rows of chardonnay vines (unseen by us from the car windows), the roots of some having reached down through meters of soil to explore the outer surface of the ceiling of Michael’s rooms.
    I asked Grandpa to stop the car. “Let’s get out here,” I said to Elio. “I want to show you the yard. But first”—I put my hand over Elio’s eyes—“tell us what you remember seeing on the way here after we exited from the automated tollway.”
    “Um, I guess that must be Lily barking outside.”
    “Yes, that’s Lily. But what did you see and feel on the way here?”
    Keeping my hand over his eyes, I glanced at Grandma, who had turned around and was now smiling a knowing smile.
    “I guess I was just looking at you,” he finally answered.
    Grandma chuckled and turned back away from us.
    “Oh, I can’t believe it!” I said, pushing my head against his chest. “It’s so beautiful around here.”
    He kissed the top of my head. “Well, then, let’s get out, and you show me, okay?”
    “Okay, but wait here. I’ll bring Lily around to greet you.”
    I opened the car door, and as my right foot began searching for the ground, I experienced one of those strange feelings one gets while on the cusp of something new, that sense of a feral world between was and is, as when the solution to a problem is about to reveal itself, but just before the resolution erupts into consciousness. The two main threads of my life are coming together, I thought. I’m bringing Elio home, and my life—our lives, and Michael’s, too—will be new and wonderful.
    Lily barked, jolting me back to the present. Harvest hadn’t yet begun, but everywhere the dry brown hills gave off a fragrance of hay, and near the vineyards hung the distinct scent of grapes ripening. Soon the little orbs of sweetness would bleed profusely into tanks and barrels and there metamorphose into wine.
    Lily barked again. I knelt down to greet her. She licked my face and hands and sniffed curiously. “Come. There’s someone I’d like you to meet.”
    She pawed and nipped at my ankles as I walked around the car to Elio’s door. I opened the door and knelt beside him. She barked and growled. I took his hand and kissed it. She watched attentively. I intertwined our hands and offered them to her. She sniffed. I slowly turned his pinkish tan palm up to her. She sniffed, hesitated, sniffed again, then licked.
    “Good girl!” I said, reaching to pet her.
    Elio got out of the car, and Grandpa and Grandma drove on.
    “Watch the car,” I said as it approached the giant, green feathers of the tree ferns at the end of the drive, turned left, and disappeared under a promontory of the knoll.
    “That’s amazing!” he said. “From here I’d never guess there’s a garage or house or anything else there except the top of a hill. The house must be to the right.”
    “Yes. The house and garage face perpendicular to each other. There’s an arborway of flowering shrubs and vines leading from the right side of the garage to the house entrance, but even if you watch